Alone in fourth place

To stay. The Royals and White Sox are heading different directions, and we don't mean just this year. Kenny Williams just signed Jermaine Dye to a two-year, $22 million extension... why? Hoping some team will want a .240-hitting corner outfielder at the trade deadline next year? The White Sox have lost seven straight and the Royals are looking for the sweep in Oakland today, and to extend their one-game lead over the South Siders.

Teams around baseball: Odalis Perez -- five innings, zero runs! -- has cleared waivers. Ned Colletti, I'm looking your way. Also, you think Dayton would be too embarrassed to call up his friend in Atlanta and say, "So, John, I hear you need a starter. Odalis sound good?"?

POSTSCRIPT: Great factoid about Jason Smith, who hit two two-run homers yesterday, from Royals Review:

Prior to tonight's game, Jason Smith had homered 13 times in 488 Major League appearances. In that universe, every time Smith stepped to the plate he had a 2.6% chance of homering and a 97.4% chance of non-homering.

Therefore, the odds of Jason Smith homering twice in four at bats is 0.38% (actually, .3847829855999998%). In other words, if Jason Smith plays in 1000 full, four-PA Major League games, he'll probably hit two homers 4 times (or, 3.8 times, as it were). Thats about six and a half full seasons if Mr. Smith is getting 150 starts a season.